Welcome back to Glee! During our hiatus a few of the Glee cast members were in the media. Cory Monteith, who plays Finn Hudson, voluntarily entered rehab and will miss the last 2 episodes of the season. Therefore the show will have to be rewritten around Monteith’s absence. Montheith, 30 years old, was previously in rehab when he was 19, according to a 2011 interview. In happier news, Heather Morris, 26, who plays Brittany, is about 3 months pregnant with her first child. The father is her longtime boyfriend Taylor Hubbel.

This episode focuses only on McKinley and tackles a hot-button issue: school shootings. With the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings still fresh in our heads and the recent debates in Congress over gun-control laws, it seemed it was only a matter of time before “Glee” addressed this issue. Executive producer Ryan Murphy Tweeted last week that “Shooting Star” is “the most powerful, emotional Glee ever. However, given “Glee’s” track record of burying important storylines in the middle of silliness or addressing an important issue and then forgetting about it for several episodes (or forever), I wasn’t sure what to expect. “OneTree Hill” and “Degrassi” have earned praise for handling school shootings with careful and poignant writing, which many believe “Glee” lacks. I believe the show handled certain parts of this episode well and the actors who played the students and teachers conveyed fear and worry, but they surrounded the story with some unnecessary frivolity that took away from the seriousness.

Will is back, and it’s finally time to prepare for Regionals. The New Directions will be competing against “Hoosier’s Daddy” from Indy and the “Nun Touchables” from Michigan. But due to Brittany’s prediction as president of the Astronomy Club that a meteor, comet or asteroid will strike Lima, Will gives the club the assignment of “Last Chance,” trying to inspire them to live as if it could be their last day. It’s very nice that Will humors Brittany and ties it into his personal struggle with Emma (although this “inspiring” speech rings a bit hollow).

Brittany decides to use her last hours on earth to declare her love for Lord Tubbington; Sam gamely supports this even though he’s hurt Brittany chose a cat over him.

Apparently Jake has forgiven Ryder, or the two are now on decent-enough terms that Ryder can confide in Jake again. Turns out (shocker…) that Ryder’s mysterious Internet girlfriend, Katie, goes to McKinley! Ryder thinks he’s in love with her; Jake cautions him to slow down and not walk into the middle of some class trying to find this girl and tells him he needs a plan. Ryder finds her at her locker and completely surprises her by taking her into the choir room and serenading her with Elton John’s “Your Song.” Of course, she’s beyond pleased and excited—who wouldn’t want to be serenaded by the quarterback? But we all know where this is going…this girl isn’t Katie. Her name is Marissa. Someone stole Marissa’s photo and created a fake identity to get closer to Ryder. He was Catfished! Or Manti-Te’o’ed, however you’d like to phrase it. Ryder is humiliated and immediately accuses Marley and Jake, which is really messed up. Despite them swearing they wouldn’t do anything like that, Ryder doesn’t want anything to do with them.

Cut to Sam singing Extreme’s “More Than Words” as the rest of the New Directions hold candles and sing backup…to Lord Tubbington, who’s sitting on a couch. It’s nice he did this for Brittany, I think.

Here’s Coach Beiste (where has SHE BEEN?). She makes dinner for Will, inspired by one of their favorite movies, “The Godfather” “Lady and the Tramp.” This might be sort of romantic if it wasn’t in the locker room. There are about 100 other places to have a dinner inspired by “Lady and the Tramp” around McKinley High. “Why worry about carbs when we’re all going to die anyway?” Will asks jokingly. (Which is probably the least politically correct line anyone could utter during this episode). Beiste is very resourceful: She boiled the pasta in a hot tub in the training room (she did change the water first!). Coach Beiste has a confession to make: Will is the first guy to make her feel like a girl and she wants to date Will. But Will has a confession of his own: He’s back together with Emma (they’ve been back together for only a week) and he hadn’t had the chance to tell her yet. Coach Beiste is crushed and walks away.
Fake-Katie texts Ryder and asks him not to be mad. Of course he’s mad, she’s been “lying 2 [him]!” But only about her name and her pic. Then who is she? She’s someone who wanted to get close to him and was too shy to do it in person. Ryder says he cares about her but this can’t go on without a face-to-face meeting. He wants to meet or he will stop texting. They agree on tomorrow, after school in front of the choir room.

Good news! The asteroid-thing wasn’t an asteroid after all! It was a dead lady bug at the end of Brittany’s telescope, and the telescope was a Pringles can. Phew, I was really worried. After Brittany disbands the Astronomy Club, Becky tells her that she’ll always look up to her and they should never graduate. Becky doesn’t want to leave high school because the world is really scary. Becky says she can’t go to college like Brittany will. Brittany tells her they both have to move on and if Becky prepares herself, the world won’t be so scary. This is a very touching scene and is doing a lot of foreshadowing, as you will see.

Will’s a good guy; he invites Coach Beiste to the first ever “Thank God The World Isn’t Ending Glee Practice.” He’s very friendly and tries to show her that everything is still cool between them.

Then the tone of the episode shifts dramatically.

There are gunshots and screaming. Will tells everyone to spread out and hide, Coach Beiste turns off the lights and shuts the door and Blaine pushes the piano in front of the door. Out in the hallway there’s chaos, teachers and students are running everywhere, trying to hide. After some silence, Will tells the students to start texting and tweeting about what’s going on, but not to let anyone know where they are because shooters have smartphones, too. Will says they all have to stay there because they don’t know what’s out there. Someone (in heels?) is running down the hallway and trying classroom doors. Then there’s another shot and a cry. Sam is worried because Brittany doesn’t have her phone on her because she’s in the bathroom and tries to leave the room to go find her. Will won’t let him. Blaine points out Tina isn’t in the choir room either.

Brittany is hiding in a bathroom stall. It’s a mostly silent scene: She doesn’t say anything, she’s crouching on the toilet seat, tears streaming down her face. It’s a great performance by Morris and I feel this scene conveys the most emotion.

Marley texts her mom but gets no response. Mrs. Rose can’t get to her phone because it’s on the other side of the room and Marley is freaking out that her mom isn’t answering. Kitty tells her that nobody would hurt her mom because everyone likes her. Kitty also apologizes for taking in all of Marley’s costumes before Sectionals, and they cry together. Kitty runs to the other side of the room to Ryder.

Sam tries to leave again, he’s truly worried about Brittany and puts up quite a fight. But Will and Coach Beiste combine their strength and hold him back, keeping him in the choir room by telling him that he’s putting everyone else in danger.

Ryder crawls over to Jake and Marley (and Artie and Sam).

Outside the school, things are also chaotic and Principal Figgins won’t let Tina into the school. She’s crying too because she doesn’t know how the Glee Club is doing.

In the choir room Artie is making a cellphone video and asks his classmates to leave a message: Ryder to his dad; Marley to her mom about secret songs she’s written; Jake to his mom and Puck. Sam hits the phone off.

Brittany hears footsteps – it’s just Will (props to him for leaving the classroom to see if she was OK). There are two other kids in the bathroom, too, and they seem relieved to see a teacher.

Back in the choir room, Ryder decides to call Katie because she’s someone he cares about. His phone rings another phone in the choir room. Everyone tells Ryder to hang up the phone. So, Fake-Katie is a member of the Glee Club?

Will sneaks the students out of the bathroom and into the choir room. There’s a SWAT Team in the school now.

The SWAT Team shouts out “all clear,” and everyone gathers in the center to cry and hug in relief.

The next day, the SWAT Team goes through everyone’s lockers taking out seemingly harmless things and installs security cameras and metal detectors (which of course Sue sets off with her donuts). I’m surprised there were no security cameras already — seems like those would at least be mandatory in all high schools. Will, Coach Beiste and Sue talk about the shooting – Will says that when the gun went off, the kids’ innocence was taken from them. Coach Beiste says half the students didn’t show up to school. Sue says (with an inappropriate Janet Jackson nipple-gate joke) that everyone is overreacting and asks “What if it wasn’t even a gun?” The cops didn’t find one, she points out; Coach Beiste says she knows what a gun sounds like, and it was definitely a gunshot. Will says if the kid took the gun home, he/she can’t bring it back because of the metal detectors, or the gun is stashed somewhere at school and the police will find it. The police are interviewing every single student and when they find who did it the student will get expelled. Sue says “Well, no student is going to get expelled.” “Why not?” Beiste asks. “Cuz it was my gun,” Sue says.

Sue tells Figgins that her gun is registered and she doesn’t feel safe without it. Sue says the safety net of the public mental-health system is gone and parents with troubled kids are too busy working three jobs to look out for them and the gun enthusiasts are so worked up over Obama taking away their guns that every house has a readily available arsenal. Figgins says that having a gun to make you feel safe and shooting it are two different things. Sue says she was doing her daily safety check (it’s in a safe) and it accidentally went off. Sue dropped the gun and the second shot went off when the gun hit the floor. She threw the casings in the bottom of a lake and moved some posters and a tub of protein powder to cover up the holes. Sue tells Figgins she panicked and apologizes. It took her a few days to work up the courage and she’s ready for her punishment. There’s a zero-tolerance policy, Figgins tells her, and his hands are tied. Sue says “An entire career of doing the right thing, winning. I sent Cheerios off to the Ivy Leagues, I educated girls who are CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, mothers, gold medalists. I’ve coached two Grammy winners, an Internet billionaire, a lesbian Secretary of State. But all I’ll be remembered for is this one thing. It will be the first line of my obituary.”

Blaine tells Tina that he and his mom couldn’t sleep and they stayed up crying and hugging; Tina says her parents didn’t want her to even go to school this week. Tina says she wanted to be in the choir room with everyone; Blaine says it was the scariest thing of his life. Tina says it was scary for her too because she couldn’t get to him or do anything to help him or even say goodbye. Blaine says the important thing is that nobody got hurt; Tina says Blaine is her family – everyone in that room is her family. Tina didn’t want the last thing they heard from her to be some snarky comment about she doesn’t get any solos. Aw, Tina.

“Read my lips because I know you can’t read words: I didn’t Catfish you,” Kitty tells Ryder (and Jake). Ryder believes it’s definitely Kitty because Kitty and Katie sound alike. Also Sugar and Tina weren’t there and Unique’s ringtone is Bootylicious. (so Jake and Ryder are friends again? I guess crisis makes everyone forgive mean comments). Jake says that it wouldn’t be so bad if it was Kitty because she’s been much cooler lately and maybe the only way she could be completely honest is by being dishonest. After some silly speculation that it’s a member of the band, Ryder knows he’ll find out at 3:30…

Will shows Coach Beiste that he made her an online dating profile on eSymphony. Beiste says nobody ever meets anyone through online dating; Will says that’s how everyone is meeting these days. He also knows a lot about her, so he either pays attention or is a stalker. Will says he couldn’t have gone through the horror the other day without her. Will says even though it’s scary it’s a good time for Beiste to get out there. And they declare their friendly love for each other. The first response to the profile: Ken Tanaka. Ugh.

Sam and Brittany hug in the hallway. Sam tells Brittany that he was genuinely scared when Brittany was all alone; she says all she could think about was him, not Lord Tubbington. Sam apologizes for being a jerk about the cat and if he’s important to Brittany, he’s important to him too. Sam says they had a fake wedding and they need a fake family; he got her a Lady Tubbington! He picked a fat one so Lord Tubbington didn’t get jealous.

Will goes to find Sue to ask “why.” Will says he doesn’t accept the reasons she gave and wants to know the REAL REASON she brought a gun to school; he wants her to tell her something so he can fight for her. Cut to the day of the shooting: Becky is confessing to Sue about her fears about going out in the real world where there isn’t anyone to protect her so she has to protect herself: Becky has a gun. Sue asks Becky for the gun and as she goes to hand it over, the gun goes off, scaring them both; Becky drops the gun and it goes off a second time. Becky starts crying and Sue promises that she’ll take care of it. Cut back to the present: Sue asks Will to keep an eye on Becky – she’s tough but like everyone she gets scared sometimes. “Thanks Buddy,” she says as she leaves.

Ryder goes to meet his Catfish, missing the mandatory assembly. As Blaine starts to sing John Mayer’s “Say” (at the secret Glee Club meeting)…Ryder waits. Notice how couple-y the Glee Club is now, especially Kitty and Artie. The rest of the club joins in and Ryder texts fake-Katie “Where are you?” No answer and he runs to the secret meeting. We see the rest of the video that Artie made, with Sam, Unique and Kitty and Artie.

What I don’t like about this episode is that there’s a joke about dying–through Brittany’s asteroid “scare”–in the middle of a possible school shooting. How do you compare joking about death and humoring someone like Brittany with the threat of real death and real fears of someone like Becky? Did the show handle the possibility of a shooting carefully enough? What do you make of Sue’s decision, and is this the last we’ll see of her? What about Becky–will she be dealing with any after-effects? Will the rest of the episodes carry residual effects of the shooting? Will anyone every find out what Sue did for Becky?